


You Wouldn't Know

by sobrecogimiento



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:06:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobrecogimiento/pseuds/sobrecogimiento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written after watching a few episodes of S1--all the things Sam and Dean don't know about each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Wouldn't Know

**Author's Note:**

> (The song from Hell Yeah was stuck in my head when I started writing this.)

There are things that Sam and Dean don't know about each other, secrets hoarded over the years like the miscellaneous fragments of monster lore that make up Dad's journal. There are things they can't say, things they are sometimes scared to even think for fear that a mental review, too often repeated, will somehow betray itself during the hours of empty highway, filled only by the roar of the wind and the Impala's engine and Dean's cassettes that Sam can't manage to hate as much as he used to. There are reasons behind every seemingly senseless act that leaves the other sibling exasperated, confused, sometimes swearing, and reasons that explanations are never given for why they will, on occasion, beat the crap out of each other for something trivial that neither of them can remember twenty minutes later, as they mumble apologies and clean up the blood; for why Dean sometimes disappears all night in some strange town and comes back at dawn smelling like booze and sex and gets pissed when Sam bitches him out because he was  _worried,_ damn it; for why Sam turns the colour of strawberries and stammers if Dean asks him about his nightmares when he's not expecting it. There are tense moments that beg to be examined and ignored once the cassette ends and the speakers let out only a faint hiss for five minutes before one of them has the sense to change it. There are things they can't say, things they can't do, things they don't want to feel or think, but do, anyway, and can't help it anymore than they can help breathing. There's the anger, the self-loathing, the frustration, all inexpressible. There's eighteen inches and a million miles between them on the lonely stretches of highway, filled with all the things they don't know about each other.

 

***

 

Dean doesn't know that while Sam was in college, he worried about him as often as he worried about studying, as often as he worried about earning enough money to pay his room and board. In other words, constantly--even and especially in his sleep. Dean doesn't know that Sam didn't feel like the selfish bastard he'd so often told him he was because he'd left Dad or the family business. Sam's entire fucking  _life_ up until the age of eighteen had been composed of the care of weapons and the chasing of things that didn't belong in this world and being told by his father that he  _should_ be scared of the dark because one of these things had killed his mother, the woman he only knew from singed and yellow photographs. And it wasn't like he wasn't sorry that his mother died; it wasn't like he didn't think the thing should get caught and torched and sent back to hell, but he hadn't  _known_ his mother, didn't remember her, couldn't be caught up in the thrill of the chase anywhere near as much as his father and his brother. So many times, he wished to just be left alone in their current motel room with the door locked and the lights on and be left to do his homework that he never seemed to be able to  _quite_ catch up on because they moved so damned much. So many times, he was just plain terrified and wanted to hide under the covers like he thought they could still keep him safe. And eventually, they let him stay, because he hated it, because he didn't really have that same reason, because he wanted so desperately to be normal. Sam didn't miss that, didn't feel guilty for leaving it, and certainly didn't feel guilty for  _trying._ But he  _did_ feel guilty and selfish for leaving Dean, which, he told himself, was stupid. Dean had dad with him; Dean was the older brother; Dean was able to and always  _had_ been able to take care of himself. But at the same time, something intrinsic about Dean made it impossible for him to do what Sam had done, made it impossible for him to just walk away, to just get up and  _leave._ And because of that simple, single weakness, Sam felt guilty for leaving him, felt like a selfish bastard, stupid as it was. Dean doesn't know how relieved Sam was to see him in one piece after he broke into his apartment (and Sam knows that he should have known that Dean would never knock on the damned door like a  _normal_ person), doesn't know that all it took was him, as much as the emergency, to drag Sam away from his "normal" college life and back on the road, doesn't know that the words  _I need you,_ though not directly said, was all it took for Sam to turn back the clock four years and go off gallivanting after ghosties and ghoulies for the weekend. And he doesn't know that Sam, beneath the façade, felt like all different sorts of shit for almost leaving again after Constance, almost going back to his girlfriend and his law school, and this time knowing damn well that he  _was_ leaving Dean by himself. He doesn't know how much Sam felt like a fucking  _idiot_ for not doing a damned thing about his dreams about Jess, not telling her, and not telling him. Dean doesn't know that Sam felt partially responsible for the shattering of his safe, little world, and he certainly doesn't know that Sam can't help staying with him, can't help it because if he ever gets nightmares where Dean's the one on the ceiling dead and cut open and dripping blood and staring down at him with that horrified, final expression, Sam does not intend to be too far away to help making the same mistake twice.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

Sam doesn't know how overly fucking protective Dean is of him, doesn't know that it's the reason Dean let him go off to college and leave the family business with no more than a "Don't get your ass kicked, 'cause I won't be around to save you" and his characteristic smirk. He doesn't know that Dean acted, and so often still acts, like he doesn't give a fuck because if he showed how much he meant the don't-get-your-ass-kicked thing it would completely and irreversibly ruin his reputation among the two people he wouldn't be driving away from forever in a day or two, and it would probably also have scared the fuck out of Sam, who Dean doesn't want to alienate anymore than he feels like he already has. Sam doesn't know that Dean discovered the definition of the word 'bittersweet' with painful clarity as he watched his bus pull away toward Stanford, which they could not drive him to, because Dad had found a job elsewhere, the kind that either had to be fixed now or next century, and they of course wouldn't be around to help then. He doesn't know how relieved Dean was that he was going somewhere safe, somewhere that he wouldn't be dragged reluctantly into the most freakish sort of harm's way, somewhere that Dean won't have to worry about him every fucking day of his life. And he doesn't know that, at the same time, how much Dean  _misses_ him, misses having someone who  _likes_ to do all the research, misses having someone who has that puppy dog expression people just believe without question, the one that saves the idiots before Dean and Dad are dragging them out of the current Mr. Creepy's lair, sometimes only after it's too late. Because Dean has to be honest with himself sometimes, has to acknowledge that he looks too damned cocky to be trusted, and Dad . . . well, Dad scares the hell out of people because if my-spouse-died-and-I-turned-antisocial was easily definable, John Winchester would reek that aura like dry ice leaks vapour. Sam doesn't know that Dean missed having someone 'normal' around, missed everything about his brother including what a damned know-it-all he was, and especially missed how he could have a purely bullshit conversation and how he  _didn't_ disappear with no warning besides a text message of coordinates for days on end, neither of which could be said for Dad. And he selfishly misses how Sam made him feel brave, made him feel like he at once had someone to protect and had someone to watch his back, how he kept him from feeling so  _lonely_ all the time. Sam doesn't know that Dean feels sick and horrible about how Jess died, that all he can think of as they drive off in silence is how Dad turned to stone over the years, how all he can think about is destroying the thing that killed Mom and any other creature that gets in his path, and that Dean feels guilty in a thousand stupid ways for not being able to protect Sam from that.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

 _***_

 

Dean doesn't know that Sam feels inadequate next to him and Dad. He doesn't know that Sam felt out of place for his entire childhood, because no, he didn't get it, no, he didn't remember Mom, no, he didn't see the point of chasing after all the things that go bump in the night because it wouldn't bring her back. So Sam felt sometimes that he had no right to be there if he cared as little as he did, had no right to sit in the back seat amongst the mounds of crap that accumulate from having three males living primarily out of a car, listening to Dad lecture them about the next freak they were chasing down. They could remember Mom, remember what it was like to be normal and then have it destroyed, which he didn't. Nothing was holding him there except for them and the fact that he was too young to go off on his own, and so he felt strange, out of place, inadequate for not caring. And after Jess died, after he suddenly understood what the big deal with revenge was, after he knew  _exactly_ what it was like to have normalcy, to have  _happiness,_ and to have it destroyed mercilessly with the sort of murder that the idiots in law enforcement would never believe had even been committed, he still felt inadequate because he was only here for himself, only here because it had happened to him, because it was suddenly up-close and personal. Sam could not be dishonest with himself; he was  _not_ here for Dean or for Dad, was not here to save innocent people from the same fate, was not here to be a good Samaritan committing credit card fraud. He was here because he was a selfish bastard. Dean doesn't know that Sam has moments where he envies his unswerving loyalty to the cause, because if he had that, Jess would still be alive, even if he had never met her, and because if he had that, he would not feel inadequate.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

Sam doesn't know that Dean feels inadequate next to him and Dad. He doesn't know that Dean feels left out in an ugly and sickening and downright  _stupid_ way because what happened to Dad with Mom and what happened to Sam with Jess has never and probably will never happen to him, because he's seen what it did to them and he has never allowed himself to care about a girl that much, no matter how many times he fucks her. The only one he's come close to 'loving' is Cassie, and he's still not entirely sure about that, not entirely sure if what he really wants is to settle down with her or get the fuck away from her for good, so he doesn't start caring about her too much, so she doesn't find that same terrible end. Sam doesn't know that Dean wishes he could have just left it when he turned eighteen, like Sam did, could have walked out on the father who so often treated him like a private in the army rather than a son because it was necessary to keep them all alive, could have walked out on the vague memory of a mother who was kind and pretty and died in a fire that he, even at the age of five, knew wasn't natural. But Dean  _can't_ leave, because he's not smart like Sam, because he'd be bored out of his fucking mind, because this is the only thing he knows he's good at and he just isn't brave enough to give that up and try to be normal. Dad and Sam had their brief tastes of normal, but the word really doesn't fit into Dean's vocabulary. They have revenge to keep them going, and a real sense of what it would taste like, while he's just the family robot, the automaton, following Dad's orders like the good soldier the old man wants him to be. Sam doesn't know how desperately Dean wants to make it all better when he sees Sam staring out the window for hours on end and knows that he's remembering ten thousand tiny details of the life he left behind. Wants to make it better, but feels like he doesn't have the right.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

***

 

Dean doesn't know that Sam has fucked a guy before. It was the end of freshman year and there was some party that he hadn't even really wanted to go to in the first place and he'd ended up sitting at a table in the back of that dark, smoke-filled room and talking to a foreign exchange student from India who shared his major. Sam could never even remember the guy's name, could only remember his hazel eyes and how seductively the exotic accent threaded through his words and how he was so beautiful that it hurt to look at him and no, it didn't matter that he wasn't a girl. And Sam didn't even realize it, didn't think about why he was so reluctant to leave as the hours passed, even though he knew that he should get some sleep because he had to work the next day. He didn't even consider the possibility of physical attraction until the guy pulled out a pair of condoms with a smirk and Sam's breath had caught in his throat and he'd nodded, nodded because he couldn't speak, nodded because he didn't have any time to think, nodded because in some dim region of his mind that was still functioning, he knew he would always wonder. So he followed the exchange student back to the dorm room he'd be moving out of in a couple of weeks, locked the door, turned out the lights, started the unceremonious yanking off of clothes. And they proceeded to fuck each other three quarters of the way to unconscious several times over, by the end of which the condoms were so shot to hell, because in the middle of it all they of course couldn't spare any thought to changing them, that they could have just gone without them in the first place. And in the aftermath, as Sam lay there sweating and panting and thinking dimly that he'd have to call in sick to work tomorrow, he decided that he might be gay because it had been so . . . so fucking  _amazing_ that no girl he'd ever been with could even begin to compare. And in that moment, hidden in the dark, he actually felt somewhat happy about it, because that was before consequences, before fear of social ostracism had the chance to kick in. But then, the guy laying next to him rolled over, giggled, made some comment about this being good for his first time, and then asked, "So, who's Dean?" He didn't know, couldn't possibly have known how that made every muscle in Sam's body tense, how it sent his heart beating and cold sweat suddenly flowing out of his pores in a sudden adrenaline rush. There were five seconds of silence, long and slow and painful, before Sam said, in a voice so small and anguish-filled that it was nothing like his own, "Please. I don't want to talk about it." And he didn't push him, didn't bug him about it, just nodded against him in the dark and went to sleep. Which eventually, somehow, Sam also did. But because of that stupid fucking question, he never fucked another guy, trying to again bury the unclean emotions that he'd thought he'd lost.  _We're brothers,_ he told himself desperately, helplessly. Not that it had ever helped him with how dirty he felt, and not that it ever would.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

Sam doesn't know that Dean considers himself to be at least partially addicted to sex. That was how he explained losing his virginity at the age of fifteen in a goddamned haystack in some one horse town in the ass end of bumfuck nowhere, because that really describes most of the Great Plains. That's how he explains the fact that he's fucked exactly three hundred and sixteen girls up to date and remembers it in numbers instead of names or even faces. And yeah, he knows it's dangerous, even with a condom, he knows that STDs seem to reproduce like rats in the modern world, but he honestly thinks that even if he has contracted something, he's not going to live to a ripe old age, anyway, and thus won't have to worry about it. But that's the easy part, what he  _can_ explain, as opposed to what he can't, or doesn't want to. Dean can't explain why he never thanked Sam for covering up for him all those times, ever since that first one in the haystack that little blonde number with those impossibly huge, brown eyes, when Sammy was only eleven and Dean didn't think he was old enough to even know what he was covering up for. But when he saw later, by Sam's wide eyes and expression somewhere between confused and intrigued, that he knew exactly what his big brother had been doing and why, he couldn't help but wonder  _how_ Sam knew, but was always too afraid to ask, because he  _didn't_ want to talk about it. It wasn't until after Sam went off to college and Dad went off to do a job by himself that Dean finally brought a girl back to his hotel room, which still made him nervous, even though he knew he wouldn't get caught, even though he was twenty-two and it shouldn't fucking  _matter_ anymore if he wanted to have sex, made him nervous because he was hard-wired like that. It was just like every other time, the need and release and relief, just like every other time until the girl got up and started pulling her clothes back on and said, "I hope Sammy's short for Samantha." And he'd said, "Nope. Sam's a guy," because it stung, because she'd just shoved in his face something he'd been trying to deny ever since he was eighteen and Sam was fourteen, because he'd figured out in a right hurry that she was a real bitch and he didn't know why he'd even liked her enough to bring her back to the hotel room. And it was gratifying, because she didn't have a comeback, because she just stepped into her three-inch spike heels and let herself out, because he'd be driving away from wherever the fuck this was in the morning and would never have to deal with consequences. But the feeling only lasted a few seconds, and he was stuck reliving that memory for the rest of the night, the memory from four years ago when he hadn't come back to the hotel until midnight for some stupid reason or other, when he'd slunk past Dad, asleep in his own bed, and was about to crawl into the one he was supposed to be sharing with Sam, but Sam had fallen asleep reading and left the light on, and he was shirtless and snoring and Dean couldn't help but think,  _God, he's beautiful,_ which left him sick and horrified and spending the night in an armchair, wanting to come and wanting to puke and somehow managing to do neither. And ever since that one bitch, he'd started paying attention and had sometimes caught himself yelling Sam or Sammy, caught himself a lot fucking more than he thought was healthy. Some girls would ask him, looking amused or curious or indignant, and most of the time, he wouldn't tell them, but sometimes he did, and that was interesting in a horrible way, interesting to tell them, "He's my brother," and watch their expressions range from shock to disbelief to disgust. There were also the girls who wouldn't ask him a damned thing, but then again it wasn't like he asked  _them_ when they called him Joey or Andrew or Ryan, so he supposed it was more or less even in the end.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

***

 

Dean doesn't know how relieved Sam was when he started dating Jess, doesn't know how grateful he was even before that, when he caught himself ogling at her long legs and blonde hair and adorable smile. Dean doesn't know that Sam loved Jess for being normal, for making him feel normal, for not being part of any paranormal phenomena, for the fact that he was able to care about her for  _herself,_ for her qualities and for her flaws, and not for what she distracted him from. Because Jess wasn't a distraction, and that's why he'd wanted to marry her, that's why he'd loved her, that's why he'd wanted the American Dream with her--the kids and the golden retriever and the house so big that it bordered on a mansion. Dean doesn't know how happy and giddy with relief Sam was when he realized he was falling in love with Jess and was able to  _let_ himself, was able to give into that feeling and have it mean something normal and decent and right, something that could be expressed in public and reciprocated and not have to be hidden behind anger and self-hatred and fingernails gouging out his own flesh in the dark. Dean doesn't know that the love itself was the reason that Sam never told Jess. He'd wanted to protect her so badly from fearing every creak of a house settling, every snap of a branch against a windowpane. He'd wanted to protect her so badly from what he'd been and what his brother and father still were that he stubbornly refused to give into paranoia, stubbornly refused to tell her what his dreams were about and why they made him hold her to him when he woke up, hold her like he was scared she'd disappear. He'd wanted to protect her so badly that it had killed her, and when two months later he caught himself staring at Dean and told himself he was disgusting, he wondered if he didn't deserve it.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

Sam doesn't know that Dean is close to loving Cassie for the same reason he was head-over-heels for Jess, doesn't know that Dean can't get over the fact that he can fuck her and like it and not have to worry about calling her Sammy, because for some reason she's the one girl that that never seemed like a possibility with. Sam doesn't know that Dean told Cassie for the same reason he didn't tell Jess--to protect her, and so she'd believe a bit easier if anything freaky started happening to her. Sam doesn't know how mixed Dean's feelings were when she called him. He knew he shouldn't have told her because that was Dad's rule, that was  _The_ Rule, that no matter what, they never tell anyone the truth, they never risk it because telling one person could mean the cops landing on their asses and arrest for credit card fraud that's been going on for the past twenty years and being locked in a loony bin or a jail, because the authorities didn't believe what happened to Mom and didn't believe what happened to Jess and certainly won't believe anything besides what they want to--namely, that the Winchesters are grade-A crazies and criminals to boot. So Dean knew he shouldn't have said a damned thing, knew that when she thought it was complete bullshit and that she didn't matter at all to him, that it was the best, even if it did hurt. But at the same time, when she called him sounding freaked and resigned and still a little skeptical, when he got out to where she was, there was an I-told-you-so in there somewhere, there was more than just a business relationship. And Dean would be a lying bastard if he'd even tried to pretend that fucking her had just happened, that he hadn't wanted it from the first time he saw her again, that it hadn't been about the best stress relief since torching the wendigo, even if the situation was incomprehensibly weird, even if Sam teased him about it the next morning. But there was yet another factor that he found himself dealing with, and this made it wresting with three gators at once and started to give him a headache. It felt so good to save her and to fuck her and to kiss her goodbye for so long that Sam rolled his eyes and got impatient and gave him even more shit as they drove away that part of him  _wanted_ her, but another part of him just wanted normalcy for her and knew she'd never have that with him. And the next time that he went out to get coffee and came back to find Sam in nothing but a fucking towel and felt that familiar, horrible boiling in his blood again, he wondered if it wasn't because Sam was already a part of this and because he couldn't hurt him anymore by caring about him than he'd been hurt already. But on some level, he knew it was one hell of a lot more than that, and he decided it was easier to just sedate the fucking gators for now and ignore the fact that he'd have to deal with at least one of them eventually.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

***

 

Dean doesn't know that Sam thinks he can remember Mom sometimes, but of course, it's not something Sam would mention casually, or even seriously, because the only thing he even thinks he can remember is a scream, a loud, bloodcurdling shriek that was cut off suddenly. Dean doesn't know that Sam has tried, stupid and pointless as it may have been, to think back before his earliest memory (something about the car and a Burger King and Dean with mustard in his hair), tried to remember Mom. And he thinks sometimes that he came up with something, something that might be real because neither Dad nor Dean ever went into the incident in great detail. It's the smell of blood, faint and copper and metallic, two spots of red on a black background, and something else, something dense and black and suffocating, something that reeks of sewers long out of use and rooms that haven't been opened in years. Dean doesn't know that his nightmares feature that as often as Jess, as often as the everyday creepy crawlies, as often as the odd-ass prophetic dreams he seems to be getting with annoying frequency as of late. Dean doesn't know that Sam sometimes has what he classifies as 'ordinary' nightmares, nightmares in which something happens to Dean, nightmares that don't haunt him beyond a vague uneasiness when he wakes up and thus make it apparent that they aren't showing the imminent future. But even all those combined are preferable to the dreams about Dean that cause Sam to awake with a start at a quarter to six in the morning and groan, "Not again, not again, not  _again"_ into his pillow and then get up and take a cold shower until he's shivering and turning blue, because it almost feels like that washes it away. And it doesn't, and he knows it with an awful certainty, but when Dean wakes up at what he calls an ungodly hour and sees Sam already typing Google to death and says, "Man, you're fucking  _nuts,"_ at least he can face him. Which is, he's learned with bitter resignment, really all he can hope for.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

Sam doesn't know that Dean is about two steps away from being a full-out fucking insomniac, and doesn't know that it's the reason that he sleeps with a knife under his pillow; by the time Dean does manage to finally conk out, he's sleeping like a goddamned log and if something dangerous wakes his ass up from that, he intends to have at least a fighting chance. Sam doesn't know that Dean's laying awake in the other bed in their current hotel room long after he's fallen asleep. He doesn't know that the bags under Dean's eyes aren't from nightmares like the ones under his own, but rather from a near incapability of  _getting_ to sleep in the first place. Sam doesn't know about the endless circles of pointless worrying that run around and crash into the sides of Dean's skull at midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, worrying about Dad, thinking and trying not to think about Mom, worrying and trying not to worry about Sam. Because really, Sam's about four feet away from him and it's really fucking stupid to lay awake nights worrying, and Mom's  _dead,_ and Dad's the only one that he has a right to worry about because God knows what he's up to and where he is and if he's still alive and what he's dealing with that's so dangerous that he doesn't want his sons involved with something that sure as all holy fuck  _does_  involve them. And he really tries not to think about Sam, even though the more he tries not to the more he hears him snoring and breathing and sometimes making small, scared noises in his sleep, even though when he's too tired to exercise that much self-control over his half-dreaming brain anymore he starts having thoughts about Sam that he shouldn't. And it makes him sick, because he's dead set and convinced that Sammy would hate him if he knew or at least not know how to deal with it and walk out--again--which Dean thinks would kill him. Because as much as he fucking hates it, those thoughts are the ones that calm him down when he's not tired because he's been sitting on his ass in the car all day or because his adrenaline's still pumping a mile a freaking minute from their latest close encounter, that's the one that helps him fall asleep. And as time goes on, it really just gets worse.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

***

 

Dean doesn't know what the fuck Sam was dreaming about that one night that scared him so badly, whether it was Jess or something else that they'd dealt with or something that hadn't happened yet. He doesn't know that Sam could never remember the nightmare himself and all he could think of when he woke up was how much he felt like he was six years old again, and how much he wanted to be six years old again, because that would mean Dean would be lying in bed next to him and he could grab hold of him and cry and cry himself to sleep and not have to worry about being given shit for it in the morning. Dean doesn't know that Sam almost got up and snuck into bed with him and that the only thing that stopped him was remembering that he was twenty-two and Dean was twenty-six and if he tried to pull that now, he  _would_ be given shit for it in the morning, because unless they practically lay on top of each other, there was no way they would both fit anywhere near comfortably in one twin-sized bed. Dean doesn't know that that was the reason for why Sam tried to satisfy himself with squeezing the stuffing out of his pillow and tried to shut the fuck up enough so that he wouldn't wake up his brother and so he could cry and shiver himself back to sleep. Dean doesn't know what possessed him to get up and almost trip over his duffel bag so he could get to Sam, doesn't know that it was relief that made Sam grab hold of him before he even had a chance to lay down and sob into his shoulder and fist his hands into the back of Dean's shirt. At the time, Dean didn't know why he did what he did next--though afterwards he rationalized that it was how freaked out Sammy was and how unreal the pitch darkness made the situation, rationalized until it made sense again--didn't know why he buried his face in Sam's hair and half-kissed him on top of the head, something he didn't regret doing, but wishes he could have pretended it didn't happen all the same, wishes Sam wouldn't have reacted. Dean doesn't know, doesn't even want to consider why that made Sam go stiff and stop crying, doesn't know how close he came to kissing him back, except on the mouth. All Dean knows is the facts, that he then kissed Sam on the cheekbone and then next to his ear, whispering, "It's ok, Sammy,"though he didn't and still doesn't know if he meant the bad dreams or the first kiss itself. And he doesn't know that when Sam sighed and tucked his head under Dean's neck and locked him in a death grip it wasn't so much because he was scared anymore, but more because he was about five seconds away from either shoving his tongue down his throat or getting hard.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

Sam doesn't know what Dean sees when he thinks he isn't looking. Sam doesn't know that when he was driving and Dean was sleeping in the passenger seat and he got bored and depressed and nostalgic enough to stick in a Metallica cassette that it woke Dean up. He doesn't know that Dean watched him through half-closed lids while he sang along softly to _Wherever I May Roam,_ doesn't know that Dean snapped his lids shut again when he saw the tears start to roll down Sam's cheeks. Sam doesn't know that that's why when he stopped at a Shell station and forgot to take the cassette out and didn't think of it until he saw Dean stretch and yawn and crack his neck that all Dean said was "I thought you hated this stuff." And actually had enough tact to drop it when all Sam did was shrug. Sam doesn't know that Dean knows all about his bad habit of constantly forgetting to take all his clothes and toiletries with him when he showers first thing in the morning and, when he wakes up early enough, watches him march out of the bathroom, ass naked and grumbling, to rummage for something in his bag. Sam doesn't know that Dean once watched him for ten minutes while he was looking for his hairbrush, and doesn't know how Dean's heart almost stopped when he turned around and saw him watching. He doesn't know how fucking relieved Dean was when all Sam said was, "Have you seen my fucking hairbrush?" because it meant that he could roll over and sing, "Oh, wheeeeerrrreee is my hairbrush," which was some song from Veggie Tales that they hadn't watched since four years ago, before Sam went off to Stanford and they were both stoned out of their minds, and get a pillow thrown at his head for his efforts, and because it meant a convenient distraction could be created before Sam realized that he'd been checking him out.

 

 _You wouldn't know._

 

***

 

There are things that Sam and Dean don't remember, details in their hazardous lives that mattered so much at the moment and don't matter the next, like the creatures that were so dangerous before they got rid of them, and don't matter anymore after they've been killed or dispelled. There's the fight that changed it all, the fight in the cheap motel room in Philadelphia that started with swearing and went on to punching and ended with several bruises and Dean getting a black eye and Sam getting a bloody nose. There's how it mattered so much at the time that Sam grabbed his bags and was ready to walk out and how Dean was suddenly so scared that he wouldn't come back because he  _knew_ his Sammy, knew what happened when he got that stupid, stubborn look on his face. There's how the bruises and the black eye and the bloody nose stopped mattering the second Dean grabbed Sam's arm and gave him that look that made it unnecessary to say,  _I need you_ because his eyes and expression said it all. There's how Sam looked back at him with the I-want-to-fucking- _kill_ -you-right-now expression because he was waiting for Dean to say  _Sammy, Sam, Sammy,_ and for his resistance to crumble and he was loving him and hating him for it. There's how Dean couldn't find the thoughts, couldn't find the words that would make him stay and how let go of his arm and yanked him around by his shirt collar and forced their mouths together. 

 

And Sam pulled back and walked out the door without skipping a fucking beat.

 

There's how Sam stood there clutching the railing of the open hallway/balcony and deliberated for a full five minutes and couldn't get rid of the feeling of Dean's mouth. There's how Dean sat heavily on the bed and cussed himself until he ran out of words expressive enough. ("Dean Winchester, you are a cocksucking, fuckheaded, jerkfaced, stupid  _bitch."_ )

 

There's how Dean went stiff as a fucking board when he heard Sam re-enter the hotel room, how he was surprised when Sam sat on the bed next to him. It took him a full ten seconds to realize that Sam wasn't going to say anything and another twenty for him to muster enough balls to look him in the face. And when he did, he was grateful and regretful at the same time because Sam looked terrified, but in a good way and not in the oh-fuck-oh-fuck-I-really-don't-want-to-die way that Dean was used to. There's how Sam hesitated and tried to think of what to say and failed miserably more times over than he cared to keep track of and finally settled for brushing his knuckles gently against Dean's cheek and leaning in to kiss him like he didn't dare believe that this was real.

 

There's how they were a few moments when they were just staring at each other, like  _Oh. Shit,_ and Sam was noticing how Dean's eye was swelling shut and Dean was noticing how Sam had apparently never stopped to wipe the blood off his nose. And suddenly, suddenly they snapped the fuck out of it and started kicking their shoes off and all but tearing each other's clothes off and kissing and biting and Sam was making these whimpering noises back in his throat and Dean was pushing his tongue in like he was trying to swallow them.

 

There's how Dean started slamming into him without even bothering to think about lube and how one hand was tangled in Sam's hair and the other was carving half-moons into his back and how Sam was in turn leaving slow, red scratches down Dean's back and biting into his shoulder. There's how Dean was whispering,  _Sammy, Sammy, Sammy_ into his ear and how Sam remembered telling him that was a name for a ten-year-old kid that he wasn't anymore and how, for some odd reason, this made him want to laugh.

 

There's how Sam was absolutely merciless when it was time to switch places and how Dean looked up at him, shocked and sweaty and breathless and gasped, "You've done this before," and how Sam only laughed and took his turn and how all further words were lost.

 

There's how they lay there for fifteen minutes afterwards without saying anything, and how Sam asked, "Does it matter to you at all? The whole . . . " and Dean said, "Naw," and kissed him to prove it.

 

There's how Dean fell asleep that night and Sam stayed asleep and it didn't fucking occur to them to think about consequences, because right then, it was over and they had gone through with it and they were still together and it didn't matter anymore, just like all the things they still knew but didn't know about each other.

 

~End


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